Defendant Oskar Gröning listens as the verdict is read out in court (Getty/AFP)

Oskar Gröning was convicted after being found guilty of being an accessory to the atrocities carried out in the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau over a few weeks in the summer of 1944.

Gröning, who trained as a bank teller before joining the SS, worked at Auschwitz from September 1942 to October 1944, taking money and valuables from the trainloads of arriving prisoners.

He has previously acknowledged "moral guilt" but said it is up to the court to rule on his legal culpability 70 years after the war.

The former SS soldier stared impassively ahead as he was convicted in the packed-out room in Lüneburg, near Hamburg, in what will probably be one of the last-ever Nazi trial.

Survivor Eva Mozes Kor, 81, who is one of 70 co-plaintiffs and was in court for the verdict, said: "He admitted to his wrongdoing, he asked for forgiveness, and he bore witness to what happened.

"His value is not in sitting in jail at age 94. His value to society is in speaking to students in person or even via Skype about what happened.

"That is what the German court should think about – what would provide the greatest value to society?" said Mrs Kor, who alongside her twin sister was experimented on by the physician Josef Mengele.

Oskar Gröning pictured during the war

She told the hearing how they evaded being gassed on arrival at the death camp thanks to Mengele's obsession with twins.

"Find him guilty. He said he is guilty. But the punishment I think is outrageous. Instead of putting him in jail, he can lecture two to four times per month to German students. Every time he lectures to a group of students, he will testify about it and will relive those experiences. I don’t think it is an easy thing for him to deal with. In jail he doesn’t have to talk about it – he can just rot away. "

After proceedings wrapped up on Tuesday morning, Gröning had taken a last opportunity to address the judges and said he was "very sorry" for his time stationed at the Nazi death camp.

"No one should have taken part in Auschwitz," he said.

"I know that. I sincerely regret not having lived up to this realisation earlier and more consistently. I am very sorry."

Oskar Gröning in uniform

Although he was not accused of gassing prisoners, he was deemed to have seen enough violence to have a clear understanding of the mass murder carried out at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

In a powerful speech that took more than an hour to read as he handed down the verdict, Judge Franz Kompisch told the former junior SS officer: "It was your decision. We have seen from your own statements here that you were an educated man."

Mr Kompisch dismissed suggestions that Gröning had been brain-washed into joining the Nazi party by what the defense described as his "Kaiser-loyal" upbringing, emphasising that the 94-year-old had made his own choices.

94-year-old Oskar Groening, dubbed the 'bookkeeper of Auschwitz', is assisted by paramedics as he arrives to a courtroom in Lueneburg, Germany (Picture Alliance/Photoshot)

In his judgement, he detailed how Gröning had volunteered for the SS and was stationed at Auschwitz, where he consciously decided to stay despite the horror he witnessed and the need for soldiers at the front.

"I don't want to call you a coward, Mr Gröning, but you took the easier path, and stayed in your desk job," said Kompisch.

Earlier in the trial, Mrs Kor had hugged Gröning in a show of forgiveness.

The embrace came as a “bit of a surprise”, said Mrs Kor on Wednesday, who had angered fellow survivors after saying she had forgiven Gröning.

“I was turning to him and thanking him for his willingness to testify and bear witness to what he did in Auschwitz, at which point he hugged me and kissed me,” she told the Daily Telegraph. “It was a nice form of expression. I wouldn’t have done it but I’m glad it happened.”